Blue Diamond is a little Indian Biryani Restaurant along Buffalo Road off Serangoon Road in Singapore's Little India. It's owner is Abdul Hameed Mohammed Farook. He was prosecuted for violation of Work Permit regulations for hiring a non-Chinese worker in his Indian restaurant!

It is quite hard to believe for a so called modern city state but these are the facts.

Singapore's Ministry of Manpower controls the employment of foreigners. Although Singapore's tiny population comprises of no more than perhaps 1.5 million local born with the rest 3.5 foreigners, the laws relating to employment, indeed in every other sphere, is clearly slanted in favor of ethnic Chinese, primarily Chinese from Communist China. This advantage given to the Chinese over other races is clearly in violation of the Constitution's Equal Protection clause, but when have the tiny island's tin pot dictators ever obeyed it?

Briefly this official racial discrimination in the island appears to originate from Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's retired Prime Minister's personal views. The Chinese, he said, are hardworking industrious and intelligent people, whereas the Malays are lazy and inefficient while the Indians are good enough only to incessantly argue and cause trouble. Therefore the Chinese are preferred and everything possible to help them must be done and the Hell to the lazy Malays and the troublesome Indians.

I think Hitler said something similar. The Germans are the best and the Jews are simply trouble. So you help the Germans and you kill the Jews.

Abdul Hammed Mohammed Farook of Blue Diamond needed workers. His is an Indian restaurant. He doesn't speak any Chinese.

According to the Ministry of Manpower, the Services Sector is comprises of

"Restaurants, coffee shops, food courts and other approved food establishments"
A Work Permit unlike other Visa categories such as the Employment Pass and S pass comprise of unskilled and semi skilled work which require lower salaries. All Farook needed was someone to help him in his restaurant with simple jobs, i.e. work permit, not someone with a PhD in culinary science.

But the law requires that work permits in the service sector can only be issued for applicants from Approved Countries and the Approved Country is principally Communist China. See below

In other words, even though Blue Diamond is an Indian Restaurant whose Tamil speaking owner speaks no Chinese or Korean, in effect what the law says is that he has to employ someone from Communist China or Korea or Malaysia to help him in his Indian Restaurant and he may not under penalty of the law employ an Indian national, which would be the most logical thing in his Indian restaurant, as anyone can see!

Farook could not find anyone to work in his restaurant from among the handful of Indians still remaining in the island. It's tiny dwindling numbers are only about 7% of the already tiny local population. Facing either closure of his business or bend the law a little to survive, he did the next best thing. He employed an Indian under the S Pass category principally for technicians and similar workers who must be paid a minimum of $2,200.00 per month since this category does not prohibit Indian nationals.

Unfortunately Farook was discovered using the wrong work visa category and has been prosecuted. He is clearly being prosecuted under an unjust law, which has no logical or rational basis.

Firstly it is clearly discriminatory on racial lines. Chinese restaurants and food establishments have no problem as they can employ as many Communist Chinese nationals as they want.

On the other hand Malay and Indian restaurants cannot employ Indians and are forced to employ Chinese nationals who cannot speak their language and totally detrimental to their business. They have to employ Chinese even though the owner speaks no Chinese and the Chinese applicant speaks no Indian.

Secondly this is a clear violation of the Constitution which requires equality between the races, by preferring Chinese over others.

Thirdly Singapore is run on a apartheid basis, not too different from erstwhile South Africa. Indians are allowed to work in construction as coolies but not allowed to work in hotels. Filipinos can work in hotels but not in construction. Filipinas can work as maids and hospital workers but not in restaurants. And so on and so forth according to whims and fancies of the Lee Kuan Yew, the dictator of Singapore and his tin pot tyrant, his son and their close friends who form the business in the Alice in Wonderland City state. A country that limits your privileges not according to your merits but according to how you look and what is your race.

You can see the rot and corruption seeping in the administration. This is what happens in any dictatorship which has been in power so long that they are now omnipotent. They are no longer open to question or even common sense. They simply can do what they want. They are totally impervious to however silly they may look. And this is what you eventually get, utter nonsense.

If Mr. Farook is being unjustly punished, Lee's Singapore is paying an even heavier price for the state sanctioned racial discrimination. The article by Surekha Y Yadav is being widely read in the very countries from which these workers come. Singapore is getting a well deserved image as a tin pot dictatorship whose laws are even more comical than those of Alice in Wonderland. The damage is by attrition. Slowly but surely the name of a pariah state banana republic is becoming entrenched. And this won't do either for this government or it's people.

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About Me

Determined to find the Truth.
Born Singapore, educated Winstedt School 2 (next to Monks Hill in Newton, Singapore) Raffles Institution, National Service, some travel in Europe, then law studies England, return to Singapore, practiced for 10 years, active Workers Party member, stood elections 1988 and 1991 in Singapore, was harassed and persecuted by Lee Kuan Yew for my political beliefs, left for USA, obtained asylum and admitted California State Bar, practice law ever since in Fremont California near San Francisco. Relinquished Singapore citizenship 2005 because I was not prepared to permit Lee Kuan Yew to unjustly retain my CPF funds if I remained Singapore Citizen. On principle, the only correct thing for me to do was to give it up, for my CPF funds. I am an American Citizen as of 2004.